that's mrs. mediocrity to you

we spend our lives
learning the truth about love

how some days it shares
a pocket with hate

and there is never enough
or too much
or any amount just right

we get all twisted with
lust and false longing

in over our heads
thinking we must choose

there is never a choice
and it all seems so
brittle fragile

strong enough to kill us
strong enough to be there

on a day sixty years and
several winters from freedom

when a heart left hanging
stops beating and we know
we know

the (w)hole
we’ve fallen into

.

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 26
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a love poem, or, write an anti-love poem. Clearly, I couldn’t decide.

The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me*

singing red in a song i have no words for

and you think blood, but i think crimson

and that is the way of things

between us

always

.

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 25
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a combo of NaPo’s use a line from another poem and PAD’s exercise.

*This line is from Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips”.

can pull you sideways with searching
and there is no path but
convoluted

i want to notice the last leaf
hanging lost
on the tree
and the dragonfly
stone-skipping
across empty sky

but there is weather
and living
and love in the mix

gravitational distraction
and mythical escape

and you bend don’t break
one thousand times
every day

with the
left-to-chance
breath
of found

growing

.

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 24
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a combo of NaPo’s mix-and-match and PAD’s lost then found.

the way it’s always been, you rolled in knots
on the couch of digression and me
caught in some web created
by midnight

we think
this is not the way it’s all supposed to be
but there are no rules

you see

empty

and i mark increment
knitting versions of safety net
and woolen boot

protection from frost and sudden
burn but
there’s always the forest

ripped out and rooted
redone and repaired
ribald and raucous

when the wind grows wings
to beat hard against cages
built to surround us

or keep us

or display
the truth we see
in windows

late at night

she threads
a third
needle

.

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 23
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a poem that mentions footwear.
Hey, there’s a boot in there, somewhere.

the sky is full

but we are drawn

to those that fall

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 22
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a star _______ poem.

tuxedoed robin

singing praise to egg blue sky

inversion revealed

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 17
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a Haiku.

.

the world is always flat in a photograph and
you draw rings around my heart with saturn fingers

fuchsia only looks gaudy in northern climates
long in the tooth from measured open waiting since

lavish contains every color of unnecessary yet
all i need is a vessel lined with feathers of fortitude

and this paper-torn chance of morning refuge
simper-ripped and recited from the blacklist of night

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 15
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a combo of NaPoWriMo’s doubles and PAD’s: use these eight words.

.

we forget the sun is perpetually shining

even in the deepest dark of night

and on black cloudy days

and grey hovering

afternoons

we

obliterate

our own memory

as we spin circle spin

never clearly remembering

we are the poised agents of change

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 14
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today is off-theme, because the sun IS shining.

.

filtered through mother nature’s

winter network

of belligerent bickering biddies

coming out

on the other side

decidedly sky-riding

blue

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 13
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a Last ________ poem.

.

i have one of those
messy minds

the kind that leaves
a desk
forever in disarray

or forgets to buy milk
but remembers to look
for signs of life
in a garden
in early spring

and almost always
your birthday

and most definitely
that time you stole a hat
and we laughed until we cried
when you thought
you’d been caught

but probably never that
you hate dark chocolate

i’ve read so many books
all the titles are gone

and i gravitate towards
the asymmetrical

because the patterns that fall
from my criss-crossed brain
consistently refuse

defining parallel

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 11
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is PAD’s write a defense poem.

.